Introduction

Hello everyone! Welcome to my first blog as an outreachy intern 🙂

My name is Hadiqa, and I am a software engineering graduate from Pakistan. Growing up, I had a million professions that I wanted to pursue, but thankfully, I ended up working in the tech field. After getting my bachelor’s degree, I started my professional career as a data analyst, working with Python, SQL, and ETL tools like Airflow and Talend. This was when I found my passion for problem-solving and data manipulation and it motivated me to further enhance my skills in software engineering, leading me to pursue opportunities in the world of open-source software.

Journey to Outreachy and Introduction to OISF

After graduating, I saw a few of my friends applying to Outreachy, a programme that provides internships to underrepresented groups in open-source software. At first, I was quite intimidated by the idea of contributing to open-source projects, doubting my coding abilities and fearing rejection. However, with some encouragement from my friends, I decided to challenge myself and applied for the Outreachy programme. To my surprise, my application was accepted, and I entered the contribution period. This was when the hard part started. Not only did I have to choose an organisation and a project that I found interesting, but I also had to compete with hundreds of other talented people to make significant coding contributions to those organisations.

Overwhelmed by the whole process, I decided to ask my friends who were outreachy alums for help. One of them introduced me to the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF) and suggested that I consider contributing to their Suricata project. Intrigued by the idea of working on a network intrusion detection system, I researched more about OISF and Suricata. Impressed by their mission and the impact their software has on cybersecurity, I felt motivated to take on the challenge.

Initially, it was very difficult to understand the codebase and get started on the tasks. I was afraid of asking dumb questions and making mistakes. However, the supportive community of OISF and the guidance from experienced mentors helped me overcome my fears and gain confidence in my abilities. Slowly, I started making PRs, some of which actually got merged! By the end of the contribution period, I was incredibly proud of the progress I had made, and I had already told myself that even if I didn’t get selected this time, I would be sure to apply again next year. However, to my utter surprise, I ended up getting selected!

Starting with OISF

For my internship, I’m working on the project “Increase Suricata’s rule keyword/ log output parity.” This project’s main aim is to take advantage of existing output fields that Suricata already logs and create buffers that will be exposed as keywords to the rule language to increase Suricata’s ability to identify possible threats and offer more features to rule writers.

Through this internship, I believe that I will not only be able to hone my coding skills in C and Rust, but I will also get the opportunity to learn from experienced members of the open-source community and possibly take my career in a new direction.

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